SpaceX Hid a Second, Secret Payload Aboard Falcon Heavy, And It Sounds Amazing

Not content with just sending his Roadster to Mars orbit Elon Musk hid a secret data disk containing some reading material to keep Starman entertained for the next Billion years or so , of course being Elon Musk this would be no ordinary data disk.

Stashed inside the midnight-cherry Roadster was a mysterious, small object designed to last for millions (perhaps billions) of years – even in extreme environments like space, or on the distant surfaces of far-flung planetary bodies.
Called an Arch (pronounced 'Ark'), this tiny storage device is built for long-term data archiving, holding libraries of information encoded on a small disc of quartz crystal, not much larger than a coin.

The Ark disk has a staggering storage capacity of 360 terabytes and is currently heading to Mars encoded with Issac Asimov's Foundation trilogy which is believed to be a personal favourite of Starman.


The aim of the creators of the Ark disks is to create a repository of all Human knowledge and put it in orbit around the Sun for either our future selves or perhaps travelers who may discover it after we are gone.

"The Solar Library will orbit the Sun for billions of years," explains co-founder Nova Spivack. "Think of it as a ring of knowledge around the Sun. This is only the first step of an epic human project to curate, encode, and distribute our data across the Solar System, and beyond."
www.sciencealert.com...

I wonder what else Elon put on the disk.

Well, according to information I read, the car going to Mars is not going to get to Mars, it will wind up someplace else floating around. I sure wouldn't want to be aboard a ship sent to Mars by Musk, You'd never get there.

a reply to: gortex

I wonder what else Elon put on the disk.

At least one terabyte is probably all the evidence that he is human, and not a Martian. Pictures of him doing hooman activities, like sports ball and song voice projecting.

Just a penny? JUST A PENNY? will be the cry!...should Og the alien comacross it.

originally posted by: rickymouse
Well, according to information I read, the car going to Mars is not going to get to Mars, it will wind up someplace else floating around. I sure wouldn't want to be aboard a ship sent to Mars by Musk, You'd never get there.

The car was never intended to "go to Mars." That's media misunderstanding. The car was supposed to go to the VICINITY of Mars ORBIT, which it is doing. It's going out a little farther than they expected because they let it burn all its fuel--and why not? Unused fuel wasn't going to be recycled or anything. It's still going on a heliocentric orbit, which was the original intention anyway.

I wouldn't be surprised if there was more than just the disk up there

originally posted by: Zcustosmorum
I wouldn't be surprised if there was more than just the disk up there

I mean.... His hot babysitter did go missing a few days before......


I kid I kid.

a reply to: gortex

Whomever sees the information will say "where's the cool sci-fi?" Seriously, i hope it describes humanity without the violence, war, and greed.

Perhaps one day i will have the money to go up there and lay claim to a free car.

I will just change my name to eloff and get that flat earth guy to launch me into space using his rv/launch pad.

originally posted by: lostbook
a reply to: gortex

Whomever sees the information will say "where's the cool sci-fi?" Seriously, i hope it describes humanity without the violence, war, and greed.

Why tell the truth, I take it.

Some day some galactic police force may arrive looking for Elon or his successors. The force might even blamed them for all the other space junk and violations of mankind.

originally posted by: gortex

The Ark disk has a staggering storage capacity of 360 terabytes and is currently heading to Mars encoded with Issac Asimov's Foundation trilogy which is believed to be a personal favourite of Starman.

Hari Seldon predicted that something like SpaceX would come along

We'll find out a lot more when the find the car in the next star Trek movie.

I can see that disc one day ending up in the Primitive Extinct Life Forms section of a museum of an advanced civilization.

Guess it made it.

originally posted by: schuyler

originally posted by: rickymouse
Well, according to information I read, the car going to Mars is not going to get to Mars, it will wind up someplace else floating around. I sure wouldn't want to be aboard a ship sent to Mars by Musk, You'd never get there.

The car was never intended to "go to Mars." That's media misunderstanding. The car was supposed to go to the VICINITY of Mars ORBIT, which it is doing. It's going out a little farther than they expected because they let it burn all its fuel--and why not? Unused fuel wasn't going to be recycled or anything. It's still going on a heliocentric orbit, which was the original intention anyway.

So you are saying that the misinterpreted fake news that first came out was wrong....that is so believable nowadays

a reply to: gortex

Wow I hadn't heard about this. S&F.
Also shocked to hear about a whopping 360TB on such a small little disk!

They say its "thanks to '5D data storage'"

Wild times...
-Driver

Lets see what happens with Musk's big fire cracker. Talk is cheap it makes for good marketing when you have someone else paying the bills.
a reply to: gortex

originally posted by: rickymouse

originally posted by: schuyler

originally posted by: rickymouse
Well, according to information I read, the car going to Mars is not going to get to Mars, it will wind up someplace else floating around. I sure wouldn't want to be aboard a ship sent to Mars by Musk, You'd never get there.

The car was never intended to "go to Mars." That's media misunderstanding. The car was supposed to go to the VICINITY of Mars ORBIT, which it is doing. It's going out a little farther than they expected because they let it burn all its fuel--and why not? Unused fuel wasn't going to be recycled or anything. It's still going on a heliocentric orbit, which was the original intention anyway.

So you are saying that the misinterpreted fake news that first came out was wrong....that is so believable nowadays

I'm saying that SpaceX NEVER SAID the car was "going to Mars." In every release they said the car was going to intersect the orbit of Mars to achieve a heliocentric orbit around the Sun. People, including people on ATS, misinterpreted that to mean the car was 'going to Mars' as if it meant "landing on Mars," which NOBODY at SpaceX ever said. So it's not so much a matter of "Fake News" as it is a lack of reading comprehension on the part of the public. I would maintain that a lot of so-called "fake news" falls into the same category.

So they lost 2 payloads instead of 1...
Great job SpaceX!!!

To all the triggered SpaceX apologists, I’ll be happy to eat my words when they launch and land with astronauts in their [colossally stupid] landing rocket...

-Chria

a reply to: gortex

Called an Arch (pronounced 'Ark'), this tiny storage device is built for long-term data archiving, holding libraries of information encoded on a small disc of quartz crystal, not much larger than a coin.

So this means the aliens who find this will need an Arch reader device. Who ever finds it may not have a clue what to do with it. But who really cares anyway. If it's Elon Musk, there is 360TB of information about him. If someone does manage to read it, they'll think he is a true god from planet Earth.